Archive for August, 2004

Butt Dyno Racing continued its inaugural season with another solid performance at the fifth WDCR/SCCA event at Fedex.

Representing BDR at this event was most of the Street Touring contingent, as well as Andy P in D Stock. Chris H could not bring his luxury sedan to this event, and Prinya S was still picking pieces of his crankshaft out of his center console, in preparation for a grand return. Eric hasn’t autocrossed all year, but we love him anyway.

Setup notes for this event: Slava was still co-driving Mei’s Koni-equipped Celica GT-S as he waited patiently for his gearbox to be returned to him in working order. Jake had a new suspension: Tein (pronounced “tane” for the JDM-impaired in the audience) zillion-way adjustable coilovers and Hotchkis swaybars. Dan’s performed the popular “anti-leak” mod on his radiator. John’s car had no changes for this event, as it was awaiting the installation of the STi “pink” springs and Noltec camber plates (as well as a matching alignment), and awaiting repayment for a bad set of RE040s he had purchased (the money to be devoted to a new set of Azenis). Slava and Mei had no setup changes.

The course design was standard WDCR fare – very well setup, very slalom happy, and lots of elevation/camber changes to screw with your head (and brakes). The course was changed after the first 9 cars of the morning ran, for purposes of added clarity.

STS was huge at this event, with 33 total competitors. Jake started bitter after his first few runs, but came through with a 64.2 on his last run (114/232 PAX). “Course well set up? Ha! Maybe if you’re a RWD car. With front bias it was plow centeral.” His time was good for 11th in the class. Slava managed to spin Mei’s cursed Celica on an early run. Slava appeared to have a 64.0, but the results later showed that he had picked up a pylon. His 64.4 was good for 12th place (119/232 PAX). Meimei was close behind with a 64.9 good for 17th (remember, this is a class with 33 cars!) (137/232 PAX). Dan set the early FBDRTD (Fastest Butt Dyno Racing Time of the Day) with a 62.7 on his final run, which would have been good enough for a smoking 6th place in STS and 79/232 PAX if not for the “fun” attatched to his classing.

John, the lone BDR particpant in STX, started strong with a 65.2 initial run. “OMG, that’s the first time I felt good autocrossing on S03′s” noted John after this run. He was unable to build on that run at all, however. John’s 2nd run consisted of lock-to-lock tank-slapping at the top of the course, along with plenty of unfavorable plowing caused by coming into corners too hot (no one’s fault but his). His third run was another disappointing affair – 66.1 with a cone. On John’s final run, he performed a crowd-pleasing four wheel drift near the spectator area on the way to his only decent run of the morning, a 64.5. This was good for 5th in STX, out of 11 competitors and 135/232 in the PAX. “I really sucked today” exclaimed the team captain. “I wanted to do better on my final run, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to drift right in front of the spectators. Anything for those fly import honies, yo. And did I mention that the drift was completely intentional, and not the result of horrific overdriving?” John was rumored to be looking into picking up the D1 circuit.

D stock was packed yet again with 20 competitors. Andy was running fun runs in order to spend the afternoon with his budding entourage of Andy-groupies. Andy threw down a 61.6, which would have placed him in a lofty fourth place in the class and an excellent 60 out of 232 in the PAX. Andy’s 61.6 would stand as the FBDRTD.

Dan won the “free pizza” award by virtue of his 62.7, but that was before Andy’s afternoon runs.

The DC region autocross season is winding down, with only two events remaining. Expect solid participation from BDR at these events.